Predator

53

She suffered.

“Wherever he kept her, she suffered from bites that were painful and itchy and awful,” Scarpetta says.

“Mosquitoes?”Bentonsuggests.

“Just one? Just one bad bite between her shoulder blades? There are no other similar abrasions with inflammation anywhere else on her body, except on her elbows and knees,” she goes on. “Mild abrasions, scrapes, such as you might expect if someone were kneeling or propping herself up by her elbows on a rough surface. But those abraded areas don’t look anything like this.”

She again points out the inflamed area between the shoulder blades.

“It’s my theory she was kneeling when he shot her,”Bentonsays. “Based on the blood pattern on her slacks. Could you get abrasions on your knees if you had pants on when you were kneeling?”

“Sure.”

“Then he killed her first, then undressed her. That tells a different story, now doesn’t it. If he really wanted to sexually humiliate and terrorize, he would have made her undress, made her kneel nude, then put the shotgun barrel in her mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“What about the shotgun shell in her rectum.”

“Could be anger. Could be he wanted us to find it and link it to the case inFlorida.”

“You’re suggesting her murder might have been impulsive, perhaps anger-driven. Yet you’re also suggesting a significant element of premeditation, of game playing, as if he wanted us to link her case to that robbery-homicide.” Scarpetta looks at him.

“It all means something, at least to him. Welcome to the world of violent sociopaths.”

“Well, one thing is clear,” she says. “For a while, at least, she was held hostage some place where there was insect activity. Possibly fire ants, maybe spiders, and your normal hotel room or house isn’t likely to have an infestation of fire ants or spiders, not around here. Not this time of year.”

“Except tarantulas. Usually they’re pets, unrelated to the climate,”Bentonsays.

“She was abducted from someplace else. Where exactly was the body found?” she then asks. “Right atWalden Pond?”

“About fifty feet off a path that isn’t used much this time of year but certainly is used some. A family hiking near the pond found her. Their black Lab ran off into the woods and started barking.”

“What a horrible thing to happen upon when you’re minding your own business atWalden Pond.”

She scans the autopsy report on the screen.

“She wasn’t out there long, her body dumped after dark,” she says. “If what I’m reading here is accurate. The after-dark part makes sense. And maybe he put her where he did, off the path and not in clear view, because he wasn’t taking any chance of being seen. If anybody happened to show up-although not likely after dark-he’s out of sight in the woods with her. And this business”-she points at the hooded face and what looks like a diaper-“you could do this in minutes if you’d premeditated it, already cut the eyeholes into the panties, if the body was already nude and so on. It all makes me suspect he’s familiar with the area.”

“It makes sense he is.”

“Are you hungry or do you intend to obsess up here all day?”

“What did you make? Then I’ll decide.”

“Risotto alla Sbirraglia. Also known as chicken risotto.”

“Sbirraglia?” He takes her hand. “That some exotic breed of Venetian chicken?”

“Supposedly from the wordsbirri, which is pejorative for the police. A little humor on a day that hasn’t been funny.”

“I don’t understand what the police have to do with a chicken dish.”

“Supposedly when the Austrians occupiedVenice, the police were quite fond of this particular dish, if my culinary sources are to be believed. And I was thinking of a bottle of Soave or a fuller-bodied Piave Pinot Bianco. You have both in your cellar, and as the Venetians say, ‘He who drinks well sleeps well, and he who sleeps well thinks no evil, does no evil and goes to heaven,’ or something like that.”

“I’m afraid there’s not a wine on earth that will stop me from thinking about evil,”Bentonsays. “And I don’t believe in heaven. Only hell.”